New morning routine
by housemartius
Summary: "Annabeth was the kind of person that woke up feeling fresh and rejuvenated, mind and body completey ready for another day which promised to be filled with mostly work. But this wasn't one of those days, it seemed."


**disclaimer:** characters belong to Rick Riordan

pipabeth fluff. my first one which is a goddamn disgrace from my part, how can i even look at myself in the mirror?...

as always, inspired my many posts on radycat's tumblr. go through her "pipabeth" tag you'll find god in there

enjoy! (this is a **one-shot** )

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Annabeth woke up to the sweet smell of cinnamon, a pair of arms delicately wrapped around her torso and a feeling of security she hadn't experienced in a while.

After blinking a couple of times to adjust her eyes to the soft light that poorly iluminated her small bedroom, she turned her head towards the black, digital clock on the nightstand near the bed, and was a bit irritated when she saw it was almost eleven in the morning already.

She frowned. Piper must have turned the alarm off after she'd fallen asleep last night. Damn it...

Well, it wasn't like Annabeth had any particular plans for today anyway, especially since it was Sunday. Still, she liked to make the most out of her mornings, even on weekends: every day she would get up early to the sound of her favourite radio station, make herself some coffee, eat a light breakfast, go for a quick jog around campus and then take a relaxing, hot shower.

She supposed she could still get up and go through with her morning routine... Except she somehow found herself not being able to summon the willpower to roll out of bed.

'Odd...', she thought to herself.

She felt inexplicably lazy today. Lazy and sluggish. Annabeth was the kind of person that woke up feeling fresh and rejuvenated, mind and body completey ready for another day which promised to be filled with mostly work. But this wasn't one of those days, it seemed.

The arms that hugged her suddenly tightened their embrace and a few incoherent noises escaped from the person lying next to Annabeth.

The blonde was thus interrupted from her thoughts, and focused on her girlfriend instead, who was curled softly against her, unaware of the scolding that awaited her (yes, because Piper was definitely going to hear about why she couldn't mess with Annabeth's alarm clock, she had a system!), and listened to the way Piper's breaths came out in small puffs of air. Her mind began to wander like it always did when she had nothing to occupy it with.

Annabeth was the tallest of the two, something she used to her advantage quite often. She enjoyed getting under Piper's skin from time to time, just for the fun of it. Her all time favourite joke was telling the brunette she was afraid she'd lose her whenever they found themselves in big crowds. Well, it had been her favourite joke for a while...

Piper had ended up having her revenge some time ago, in the subtle, yet extremely humiliating form of two purple t-shirts: one for herself, adorned with black capital letters that read "IF FOUND RETURN TO ANNABETH", and the other for the blonde which simply had "I'm Annabeth" written on the front. Needless to say, every time the two walked around wearing those infernal shirts, Annabeth felt like crawling into a hole and die.

In the past, Annabeth had felt some insecurities due to her height. For some time during junior high, she had even been taller than some of the boys in her class. They'd never mocked her for it though. Everybody knew better than to mess with Annabeth Chase.

But when it came to Piper McLean, their significant height difference was actually one of the blonde's favourite things about their relationship. Annabeth loved to wrap her arms around Piper and carry her around as if she was some sort of teddy bear (mostly to annoy her, of course), and she liked resting her head on top of the brunette's, or on one of her shoulders. Annabeth especially cherished the moments when Piper was the one feeling the most affectionate: she was almost like a cat in the way she'd rub her cheeks against the blonde's neck or hair, or when she'd slip under Annabeth's arms while she was working and softly kissed her face until Annabeth was a blushing mess.

One thing that was particularly curious to Annabeth was that when they weren't being "huge dorks in love", as Piper so eloquently liked to put it, they were constantly teasing each other. Sure, Annabeth was a proud girl who always made it so that she was the one who came out on top after any kind of quarrel (and when she didn't, well... let's just say revenge really is a dish best served cold), and Piper was a prankster slash rascal slash little shit by nature. Teasing was the foundation of their relationship. Hell, it had been what had gotten them together in the first place.

Annabeth certainly recalled that day pretty well: she'd been standing in the lobby of the museum, clothes and hair soaking wet, the boy she was waiting for nowhere to be found. Devastated and broken hearted, she had been about to call it a day when a girl, who later introduced herself as Piper McLean, had appeared in front of her and had offered to give her a tour of the place. Annabeth, somewhat dazed by the stranger's unique beauty, had agreed and the two had walked around seeing the exhibits for what seemed like hours. But things had taken a _really_ unforeseened turn.

Even though Piper was an innate speaker, her knowledge of the displays was somewhat limited, and Annabeth had ended up taking her place as the guide instead, much to the brunette's chargrin: basically, whenever the blonde finished a sentence, Piper would angrily shout an "I knew that!", or the number one on Annabeth's best retorts ever list, "Everyone and their mom knows that!". And the whole ordeal had, for some strange reason, lifted Annabeth's spirits better than any chocolate ice cream or pep talk ever could have.

The most shocking part though, something Annabeth hadn't been able to coherently explain to this day, was when both girls decided to chill out in the planetarium for a bit after the comical tour. And ended up making out right there, under the starts and planets and whatnot.

When she told her best friend Thalia what had transpired in that dark room, the blonde was patted in the back so many times, she'd felt sore for days.

Annabeth smiled lovingly at her resting girlfriend when another memory invaded her mind: Piper had informed her, a few weeks after that eventful day, that she'd managed to "track down" the guy who'd abandoned her in the museum, and had kicked his ass all by herself. Annabeth had been kind of embarrassed after that confession (even if the brunette appeared to be very proud of herself), stating that she didn't need a "bodyguard" and that she was more than capable of dealing with her own jackass exes; but Piper had assured her that she hadn't mentioned the blonde's name or her motives. She happened to bump into the dude, quite literally, and beat him up under the excuse that he had taken the opportunity to cop a feel here and there.

That had been quite an hilarious story for Annabeth, even if she still had scolded Piper for it, telling her to never pull such a stunt again. But it had changed the way she saw Piper nonetheless. She had initally thought her to be the typical tomboy, preocuppied with pretty much nothing except her sweet shenanigans, and petting every dog and cat she saw in the middle of the street. But there was so much more to Piper than that: to Annabeth, she was just as beautiful inside as she was on the outside. And that was saying a lot. She was a brave and caring girl, who'd go to the end of the world and back for her loved ones; she was the one person you could always count on, who Annabeth had come to count on. Piper had become, to simply put it, her sanctuary.

They were opposites and that was why it all worked so well: Annabeth was rational and logical, Piper was a feelings and emotions kind of person; they ballanced each other out perfectly, and had ended up rubbing some of their qualities and flaws on one another. For example, since when would Annabeth say (or in this case, think) something along the lines of "she was just as beautiful inside as she was on the outside"?! Ew. Piper's influence, no doubt.

The blonde had been so lost in her inner reflections, she hadn't noticed she had been unconsciously playing with Piper's hair for a while now. Said girl had woken up to her brown locks being pulled every now and then, and was not very happy that she'd been disrupted from her precious slumber. Her kaleidoscope eyes were fixed on Annabeth's face, who looked distracted as usual, and since her grey, unfocused eyes had yet to fall on Piper's annoyed features, the brunette opted to make a low sound with her throat to get the blonde's attention.

It worked. Annabeth, startled with the sudden noise, jumped a bit and instantly let go of Piper's hair. Then, realizing it had been her girlfriend who had scared her, the blonde knitted her eyebrows and glowered at her.

At this, Piper laughed. And Annabeth found herself thinking that it had magically filled up the entire room (seriously?! Damn you, Piper!).

When Piper calmed down, her eyes fixated on Annabeth once again. They were so beautiful and had so many different colours... This was actually one of the few phenomenons that Annabeth could not explain no matter how hard she tried. She'd given up a while ago too: Piper's unique eyes were a mystery no one could solve.

"The hell are you looking at, nerd?", Piper demanded in her typical mocking tone.

Annabeth froze. That feeling of safeness that had taken over her when she'd first woken up, came rushing back swiftly, this time with much more force, and the blonde felt a foreign, yet amazing warmth settle itself inside her chest.

'So this is what it's like to be in love.'

Annabeth felt her cheeks getting warm at that particular epiphany, and prayed to every deity there was that it wasn't noticeable. Piper would never let her hear the end of it.

"Nothing.", she answered as casually as she could. "You look even shorter today, is all."

Piper frowned deeply at that and Annabeth couldn't fight back the huge smile that made its way to her face.

She held Piper against her, kissed her gently on the lips once, then twice, stroked her hair and rested her forehead against the brunette's. She felt Piper nuzzling against her body some more, took notice of her tired yawn. This was the safest she had ever felt.

She closed her eyes, morning routine all but forgotten, and concentrated on her own heartbeat and Piper's gentle breaths. She could feel herself starting to doze off.

"Nice insult, did your mommy pick it out for you?"

Annabeth chuckled almost inaudibly and fell asleep.

* * *

this was a simple one. but i like it nonetheless. fluff is blood fluff is life

r&r pls!


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